


paradise warfare

by badwrites



Category: Drive (2011), Hotline Miami (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Crossover, F/F, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Pining, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 15:56:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20294107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwrites/pseuds/badwrites
Summary: After getting out of Los Angeles, the Driver gets stuck in Miami.He's still doing the wrong jobs, for the wrong people.





	paradise warfare

## [ 04 / 08 / 1989 ]

The Driver never answers his phone, even if he's present to hear it ring. Although, he does listen to voicemails, and sometimes even calls back if he has to. Usually to tell people to talk to him in person.

His landline has been ringing off the hook for the past week and a half, and he would tear it out of the plug if he didn't have to get calls from the guys at the workshop.

He's got obligations, here in Miami. Starting a new life isn't easy.

He deletes each one, as they drop in once a night:

"`This is 'Carla'. Could you do a house call? I live at...`"

"`Hey man, it's 'Johnny'! Can't wait to see you at the party tonight. In case you forgot...`"

"`Hello, this is 'Carla' again! My brother has a problem with his transmission. He's at...`"

Fake person. Fake reason. Real address.

He's not going to be steeped in this stuff again, so he pointedly ignores those calls.

That is, until he wakes up one day with a white envelope slid under his door with a couple hundred bucks, and two addresses scrawled in its inner fold.

He could use it, he convinces himself. Supplemental income.

The voicemails stop. The envelopes drop in, instead.

This is the Driver's third job, rolling a toothpick around his mouth as he waits in front of a stranger's apartment. He drives a new car for every job, the benefit of having the keys to his work garage with no more security than a lock. He's got a stack of old plates at home from salvage, makes it easy to be anonymous.

After the first job, he'd invested in some heavy-duty cleaning supplies -- a big bucket of hydrogen peroxide in particular, so somebody wouldn't pick up their car with the upholstery dyed red.

Masks. That's the theme. This guy, when he quietly drops in to his passenger's seat, is wearing that of a rooster's. It's this floppy rubber thing, with a saggy, flimsy little comb. Kind of funny. He sits casually, doesn't buckle himself up. Wears a nice woolen letterman jacket on his shoulders, a little hot for spring in southern Florida.

"The apartment on East 7th," says the kid in the jacket. His voice is calm and level, even when muffled by rubber. Probably isn't his first job, either.

The Driver nods, and turns the key in the ignition.

* * *

##  [ 04 / 16 / 1989 ]

The Driver is surprised to get Jacket's address again, see that same mask. He just assumed that they (whoever _they_ are) were just shuffling him with a new person a week for a reason, or that none of the killers hit twice.

Doesn't matter to him either way. Although -- Jacket, he's efficient. These apartments are a twenty-minute drive from his place, but the job took less than three minutes. Three minutes for him to clear out an entire apartment building. Three minutes to come back, jeans soaked red and feet leaving a gory print as he clambers on in.

Easy paycheck, on his part. No risk.

The drive to the place was mutually silent. Coming back (slowly, as he always takes the side streets and never the freeway for these) they begin to talk. Well, kind of.

"You're not a local, are you?" Jacket asks, out of thin air.

The Driver's eyes flick to him, and back to the road. No point in studying the expression of a chicken mask.

He doesn't have to answer that, anyway.

Jacket nods to himself, taking that as a 'yes'. Follows it up with, "you an Angelino?"

His grip on the wheel tightens, the sound of the leather in his gloves stretching on his knuckles punctuating the silence. Paranoia stabs his gut, as he thinks: _How does he know?_

He's tempted to throw him out of the car, while it's still moving.

"Your gloves?" Jacket points out, when he senses the tension.

Driver raises a hand to the air, looks at it. There it is, inscribed as tiny text on the seam: `LA MADE`.

"Oh," he says sheepishly, and puts it back on the wheel. "Yeah, I am."

A long pause. They watch the streetlights pass, globes of lights illuminating the palms on the edge of the road.

After about two minutes, he pipes up: "You lose anybody in San Francisco?"

The Driver thinks: _That's a weird fucking question._ Then thinks: _Oh, right. He's killing Russians_.

He shrugs. Nobody close. "I was more concerned if it was gonna hit LA next. You?"

Jacket doesn't say anything, sits there in silence. So, that's a yes.

The rest of trip isn't long -- another five minutes -- but it's quiet, again. They don't need to fill the space with noise.

This time, though, Jacket actually says "see you," when he drops him off.

The Driver nods his head, gives a little smile. Says "bye," back. Waits, and watches, until Jacket disappears into his apartment building.

He turns to the now-empty passenger's seat, and considers that he might need to grab his handheld vacuum cleaner for all the dried blood and bits of human tissue he left behind.

* * *

##  [ 04 / 25 / 1989 ]

Jacket doesn't come back alone. He brings a body with him.

The Driver squints, as he sees him approach, and then feels a rise of alarm in how his skin pricks when he sees who it is: A young woman, slung limp and lifeless in his arms.

Her pale skin tinged with a blueish-grey hue, her thin white bra and panties the only barrier between her and the air. Whatever makeup she's been wearing earlier has been completely ruined -- there's two definitive dark streaks on her face, where her mascara has been running, and pink gloss on the side of her cheek. Her hair, strawberry blonde, is unraveling from her ponytail.

There she is, in Jacket's arms, where he carries her with one arm around her shoulders, the other hooked in the crook of her dangling legs. Awkwardly dipping down to open the door with a hand, he uncerimoniously dumps her body in the back seat. Follows her, then slams the door closed.

The Driver looks at him through the mirror, eyes wide with uncertainty.

"Go," Jacket commands. The Driver nods, wastes no time in accelerating through the mansion's swooping, curving driveway to the main streets.

They're not that far away from his place. Shouldn't take long. The Driver asks, voice raised: "Is she...?"

"She's alive," Jacket says, voice on the edge of worry, losing his cool. "She's just on something."

From the mirror, he can see her: Eyes red and glazed but at least fluttering, as they roll back in her head. Her head lolls on her shoulders, as the rest of her body is propped precariously propped up in Jacket's lap. Her jaw, unhinged and loose, drips drool onto the car seat.

Alive, but that's not a guarantee for later.

"I think I know someone who can help," he says. He double-checks on each periphery of these empty side-streets to make sure nobody witnesses him completely ignoring every yellow-red light.

That's partially true. He doesn't have the deep connections to what's going on in Miami as he did in LA, but he's on the first stage where he already knows enough guys who must know guys themselves. There's no doubt someone could hook them up to someone willing to work under-the-table, if he dropped an OD'ing girl on their doorstep.

Jacket shakes his head, insistent. "No. Nobody else needs to know."

"You sure?" he asks, skeptically. "I don't mean the ER."

"I got this," he answers simply, but the Driver isn't convinced.

So, when he drops him off, he does keep a lookout to make sure nobody's here to witness Jacket dragging an unconscious woman up to his apartment.

Not before he offers to help carry her with him, though; that idea is shot down immediately. The guy just up and leaves, disappears into the foyer with the girl sloppily slung in his arms.

For a good minute and thirty seconds, he sits in the car in front of his place, tapping his fingers on the wheel and craning his neck.

The Driver thinks: _Should I force myself in there and take her away?_

The Driver thinks: _Is it a good idea to leave her with him?_

The Driver thinks: _Do I really trust him that much?_

The Driver thinks: _If she dies, did I just take part in it?_

The Driver ends up going home, passive, thinking that he'll give him the benefit of the doubt. That it's too late now.

That doesn't mean he doesn't have a rough time sleeping, turned insomniac by concern and guilt.

* * *

##  [ 05 / 05 / 1989 ]

The first thing Jacket says to him when he picks him up is, "before you ask, she's fine."

The Driver chews on the end of his toothpick, eyeing him warily. He's not going to start, yet. "That so?"

"She's detoxing."

"Uh-huh."

"Trust me," he says, almost pleads. "She keeps getting puke on my couch, but she's getting better."

The Driver smiles at that, the image of Jacket trying to handle that kind of funny. Of course, imaginary him has a mask too -- that's funnier.

Anyway, he accepts it; gives him a little nod of his head and a grin as they set off for Palm Beach.

The place is nice, one of the more ritzy cul-de-sacs in the area. Jacket gives him a little wave, and walks confidently with his AR cocked in front of him.

The Driver watches him kick the door in. Then he disappears.

A minute passes. Muffled bursts of _rat-a-tat-a-tat_ echo through the walls.

The Driver waits, and begins to fear the worst when it gets quiet for only a good thirty seconds.

Then: _Boom!_

A single room of the top floor explodes. Partially. Black smoke pours out into the air from its windows, but the building as a whole remains intact. Whatever it was, it wasn't that big.

He thinks: _Damn it_. The Driver is almost about to leave -- a loss is a loss -- when Jacket stumbles out of there, bent over hacking and coughing, poisoned by the smoke.

Must've been a chemical bomb; his own eyes water, lungs itch, as Jacket gets into his car.

At least he made it back.

The Driver turns to him and quietly tells him, "I heard the explosion."

"_What?!_" Jacket asks, voice louder than his ears could probably hear right now.

Driver leans in, and enunciates louder. "I. Heard. The. Explosion."

"Oh! Yeah!"

Jacket looks singed, soot all over his body, mattifying the blood. His mask took the worst of the blast; it's torn in three places, peeling off of his head. The Driver can even see some of his face through a flap: A brown eye looks at him, maybe a little deliriously.

Jacket doesn't stop him from reaching up and pulling what remains of his mask off of his head, tossing it in the back seat. Doesn't stop him from wiping away some of that soot from his cheek with a thumb, either.

Jacket is younger than him, but not by that much; early-middle twenties, maybe? His face is a little sharper, a little narrower than his own. A little reedy. His hair is mussed from his mask, but otherwise short, a sandy blonde. He's a little unkempt, unshaven. Now, he's looking back at him as he studies him, dark circles under his eyes.

He looks really, really tired.

Still, Jacket is the one to curl his hand on the back of his neck, to kiss the Driver first.

His mouth is hot, and warm, and tastes _so fucking awful_ Driver almost pulls back; doesn't, for the sake of the moment. It's even worse when Jacket opens his mouth, tries to explore the Driver's with his tongue. He can taste the blood between his teeth, and the smoke from the blast, and the smoke _not_ from the blast -- must be a smoker, himself.

So, as much as the Driver appreciates the moment, he breaks it off first. Cradles the side of Jacket's face with his hand, lets him lean his head into it. His expression is dreamy, appreciative, warmer than he expected.

It gets significantly less warm when the Driver asks, loudly so he can hear: "Can I buy you some mints?"

Jacket rolls his eyes, and leans away from him, setting himself back in his chair. Wipes his cheek with the back of his hand. "Fuck. Sure, asshole," he says, but doesn't really mean it. "Can we get going? You're not the only one who heard."

"Mm-hmm." He shifts into drive, gets them the hell out of dodge.

He looks at Jacket, and smiles. He looks back at the road.

He looks at the Driver, and smiles back. He keeps looking at him.

* * *

##  [ 05 / 11 / 1989 ]

"Let's get to your place, okay?" the Driver murmurs, against his cheek.

Jacket might not bring him to his apartment (ever, apparently, which only kind of bothers him), but the Driver makes the most of it. Gets Jacket to fuck him in the backseat of his car right in front of the building, instead.

He doesn't make much of a sound at all when Jacket pounds him from behind; a pleased sigh, an '_oh_' here and there, when he hits a good spot inside him. That's alright; Jacket should know he likes it anyway, the way he's hard all the way through, even when Jacket gets his hands off of his dick to focus on cradling his hips to rail him harder.

(He slaps his hand away, though, when he traces the still-pink scar on his belly with a finger.)

Jacket might come first, grunting as he fills up that condom, but at least he's considerate enough to give the Driver a hand afterward. Even if his head and arms are awkwardly dangling in the leg space of the back seat when his lower body is still on Jacket's lap.

If Jacket finds it presumptuous that he's now carrying condoms and lube in his glove compartment (which the Driver is a little self-conscious of), he doesn't say anything about it.

* * *

##  [ 05 / 23 / 1989 ]

"Something -- just fucking weird happened," Jacket tells him, when he gets into the car.

Two minutes, flat. He's cleaner than usually is when he stumbles out of a job.

"Yeah?" the Driver asks, craning his head toward him. He looks fine to him, at least.

"I thought I got a prank call in there."

The Driver snatches the mask off of his head. Jacket blinks back at him: He's obviously bleary-eyed with exhaustion, yeah, but not delirious or dosed.

"A call? On _what_?" he asks, giving him an incomprehensible look.

"Their phone, obviously," he says, flatly. "The Russians'."

"Well," the Driver says, slowly. "What did they say?"

"They told me we needed to drive somewhere else."

"I wasn't _paid_ to drive --"

Jacket interrupts him, raising his voice to say, "I thought we did."

The Driver looks at him and thinks, _what the fuck are you talking about?_

Jacket slowly repeats, face going a little red: "I thought we drove to the PhoneHom headquarters --"

"-- the phone company?" he asks, furrowing his brow.

"_Yes._ I thought we drove, just now, and I killed a guy fucking around with their system." Pause. "With a golf club."

The Driver feels concerned to say the least. He lowly insists: "That didn't happen."

"I know." Jacket gestures, flings his hand in the air as a symbol of _I give up_. "I must've blacked out."

"You were in there for two minutes, _tops_, how would you --"

"I know," he says. And then, more quietly: "I don't know."

They sit there, looking at each other uncomfortably -- Jacket looking defensive, shrinking down on himself.

"Hey..." the Driver starts, slowly. Struggling to find the right words other than, 'please keep in touch with reality.'

"Look. Don't worry about it," says Jacket, looking like he deeply regrets mentioning anything at all. "I'm fine. We're done."

"I should worry about it," says the Driver, too chickenshit to say _because I worry about you._

* * *

##  [ 05 / 27 / 1989 ]

Jacket isn't the only person he picks up, in the months he was driving for -- whatever organization this is. There are five others after his first with him, spaced intermittently. He never sees them more than twice: pick-up, drop-off, in the same night.

For two of them, he only sees them once. Picks them up, waits until Russians come out pointing an Uzi at his car, and then he leaves before they can get a shot. There's no point in him staying put for a dead body.

  * Rat mask: Makes it out alive. Doesn't seem to like him, tells him he should consider his life choices when he drops him off. Whatever.

  * Horse mask: Makes it out alive. He didn't expect picking up a woman at any point, let alone a petite one with sparkly neon fingernails, but does his job anyway. He appreciates that she doesn't say a single word to him, there and back. He drops her off at a dark public park, not her place.

  * Octopus mask: Makes it out alive. Nervous as all hell, severe case of the shakes. Wore his glasses outside of his mask with a piece of tape. Impressive, that they were still secure even when he came back splattered in blood.

  * Snake mask: Doesn't make it out alive. Some rotund southern guy, chatty, enthusiastically talks his ear off about some right-wing conspiracy theories. He tunes it out, and doesn't see him leave the bathhouse.

  * Wolf mask: Doesn't make it out alive. Generic, mild-mannered. The Driver speeds away when he sees a crowd of mobsters drag him out of the bar, body broken by the pipes they're wielding.

For the five minutes he's waiting for Jacket to come back, he's thinking about what he's seen, and how it will end.

The lights and the thumping synth follow Jacket out of the club -- sounds like the DJ is still alive, huh -- reflecting in the jump, the near dance in his step.

He doesn't even bother with the pretense of getting into the passenger seat, throwing his mask off and then ruffling his own damp hair with a grin as he opens the Driver's door. Just tries to awkwardly wedge himself between the Driver and the steering wheel. Then, tries to tongue-fuck him, before the Driver pats his back and goes, against his aggressive lips, "wait, the horn."

Jacket just reaches past him to the side of the seat, startling him as he wrenches up the lever to recline them.

Well. That's a solution.

They end up like this: Jacket's hands pressing on the roof of the car for leverage as he fucks himself at a fevered pace on the Driver's dick. No words exchanged, not even a 'fuck' or an 'oh my god', but he accentuates each lift and press of his hips with a hard grunt, a gasp. Driver just lies there passively still, bites his lip as he watches Jacket -- clothed on top, naked on bottom, the same as him -- work out his bloodlust/real lust to the beat of the club.

* * *

##  [ 06 / 08 / 1989 ]

Good thing that he opted to wait on the other side of the empty parking lot, he thinks, as he watches a reinforced, plain black van back up perpendicular to the doors of the office building.

He leans forward, watching tensely.

Then leans backward, stunned, as the van hits petal-to-floor gas and shakes the very foundation of the office as it rams, head-first, into its doors -- an explosion of glass, bent steel and drywall clouds the air.

He looks around first to make sure that nobody's here to ambush him, then cautiously rolls his car to the curb in front of the scene. He's trying to push down this dread in his stomach, as he does.

The two minutes he waits there are nerve-racking. While there might be a wide space where the doors used to be, there's too much debris to see anything other than fluorescent lighting, dust, and smoke.

He taps his fingers on the wheel, and tries not to imagine Jacket's corpse under a wheel.

Finally, a figure begins to emerge alone out of there. He tries to keep his nerves as he's preparing to shift from neutral and presses hard on the clutch. Relaxes, as soon as he sees it's Jacket. Watches him closely as he slumps into the passenger's seat.

Jacket reeks of gasoline more than he does the blood his arms are soaked with, and his varsity is being shifted by the way his chest is rising rapidly, nearly hyperventilating.

They're not in immediate danger, for now, so Driver keeps an eye out at their surroundings as Jacket cradles his masked head in his hands. Waits for him to steady himself, to catch his breath.

This is the most shaken he's ever seen him.

Eventually, Jacket takes a deep, shaking inhale. Blows it out slow, the sound of it muffled against rubber. "Thanks," he eventually says.

The Driver turns to him, and is completely sincere and completely relieved when he mutters, "I'm glad you're OK."

Then leans forward, hand reaching up towards his face, his mask --

"I can't," Jacket murmurs, as he puts a bloody hand on the Driver's shoulder to stop him moving closer.

"We -- me and her -- I think we're a thing," Jacket says, his voice still tight, shocked. But there's hope to it when he says: "I think we're finally official."

"Alright," says the Driver, non-committal, and then leans and turns away, front to the wheel. There's a disappointed pang in his chest, leeching into his voice.

It's not 100% alright, but whatever. It's _good_ that he's happy, that he found someone.

The Driver is starting to get used to always being the second choice.

There's a sound of a window bursting -- they turn their heads, and watch, as flames begin to lick outside of the building, eating away at the first floor.

"Go."

The Driver nods. They peel away in a U-turn with a whirring screech of his tires, and soon the office complex just becomes a blip of smoke in the horizon of the rear-view mirror.

The rest of the car ride is in complete silence, only punctuated by the sound of the _click-click_ of his turn signal and the sound of him shifting gears. He drops him off in silence, too, without a look and without a goodbye.

That's the last time he sees him, other than in news coverage.

* * *

##  [ 06 / 10 / 1989 ]

The Driver is stuck at the shop with nothing on his immediate backlog, aimlessly flipping through the newspaper somebody left when they came to pick up their car.

There's an article on Page 7, a thin band of a snippet without a picture. It's the headline that gives him pause:

`APARTMENT MYSTERY SHOOTING, ONE SLAIN. Gunman suspected to be resident, dating victim.`

The Driver's fingers turn white as he reads its contents, shaking the paper as he does (_body in fridge_, _shot in head_, _coma_, _third gunman_, _murder-suicide?_).

So, he balls the paper up and tosses it in the trash. He's lucky his boss is in a good mood and it's a slow day; he goes home from the repair shop early, couldn't be productive today anyway.

He takes the envelope of cash that pops up in his mailbox, but ignores all calls. Doesn't even listen to any of the voicemails, definitely doesn't go pick up anybody else at this point.

The Driver is officially out and done.

Done with driving around killers.

Done with getting embroiled in the same things he ran from.

Done with Florida, probably, as soon as he can pack his life together again.

* * *

##  [ 11 / 05 / 1991 ]

It's Tuesday and in the earlier part of the afternoon, so it's no surprise there's nobody around in a dive like this.

The Driver has been in Chicago for a good portion of the year now, which was a mistake -- it's only the start of November and he's already freezing his ass off. Miami and LA were the right vibe and the right climate, wheras now he's stuck trying to survive off other people's heaters because his own apartment doesn't have a good one.

He's polished off a plate of fries (in the hope that food will provide insulation), and finishing off a beer when when his eye is drawn to the tiny yet bulky TV hanging over the door.

There he is: Jacket, being guided into the courthouse by what looks like an entire police force. He looks well-rested and calm, more than he's ever seen him, but the orange jumpsuit and the chains around his arm makes it hard to watch, to say the least.

"`...of the first day of the trial for the serial killer known as the 'Miami Masked Maniac'...`"

There's a stream of text at the bottom detailing Jacket's crimes, the estimated body count, the upcoming court schedule.

The Driver smooths his hand over his hair, and over his face. He sits there, mouth covered, and shakes his head _no_ as he watches.

"`...man, Richard Colt, was 23 years old and unemployed when he began his four-month killing spree...`"

The Driver didn't need to know his name.

"`...veteran of the 1985 skirmishes in Hawaii, discharged after being wounded in an explosive attack...`"

The Driver didn't need to know his trauma.

No. He can't stand this. There's no point to knowing any of this other than when to leave (the state of Illinois).

As he gets ready to get out of this shithole, he gets a snippet of someone else's conversation. His ears perk up, immediately, catch on to those Midwestern accents bouncing back and forth.

"I don't even care about the fucking Russians. You hear about what he did to that _girl?_"

He _saved_ her. But the Driver isn't going to step forward as a witness to testify it, not now. That's his sin to carry.

"The hooker? Look at how much he doesn't give a fuck, I don't see a single emotion. I hope he gets the fucking chair."

He turns his head at that. It's the only two people in the bar, some middle-aged muscle-head with a dirty polo shirt talking to the bartender as they watch the TV. Same demographic.

"Wouldn't matter if he did or if he didn't, someone's gonna wreck his shit the minute he's in prison. He's dead meat within a week, I'll put a twenty on that."

The Driver finishes the last inch or so of beer in the bottle, and sets it down with a _clink!_ on the unpolished counter.

"Yeah? Where do you think they'll send him?"

The Driver stands up, and politely pushes his chair back under the bar.

"Oh, Florida State, for fucking sure."

The Driver hooks his hands in his coat as he walks towards them, casually.

"Ah, nice. I got a couple of guys there. I gotta call and tell them what's headed their way --"

The bartender silences his friend with a lift of a finger, and looks at the Driver with the air of annoyance barely masked by occupation-required politeness.

"Can I help you, buddy?" he asks, eying his hands in his pockets with suspicion. "Want to re-open your tab?"

"Yeah," he says. Then, "nah."

The Driver ends up locking the bar up himself, flicking out the lights and flipping over the sign to read `SORRY, WE ARE CLOSED`.

It might be time for him to make another move, back to somewhere warm. Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta...

He'll figure it out and survive, he always does.


End file.
